


Mandokarla

by cosmic_interference



Series: We Thank Our Lucky Stars [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Assassin Rey, Blood, Coruscant (Star Wars), Dark Rey (Star Wars), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, Mercenaries, REPOSTED STORY, Rough Sex, Senator Ben Solo, Smut, Vaginal Sex, also i wanna say..., kind of?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-08-10 10:03:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20133652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_interference/pseuds/cosmic_interference
Summary: She doesn't hit her mark that day, Ben suffices, because it’s him. He’s still alive. Suddenly, it makes sense she’s singled him out of the crowd by looking into his eyes. He chafes at how pliant he’d been in her arms, how close to his demise he’d been and on his first day at the Republic no less.He hasn't told anyone at the gathering that he'd been assaulted, very nearly killed. Not even Qaff-ta. He's quiet and socializing even after his very first mercenary encounter. If he’s being honest with himself, he doesn’t entirely trust the Cerean. It had been one of the first lessons his mother had inculcated in him. Know your allies, Ben, not everyone with a smile mean good and not every sour face is an enemy.





	1. ONE

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! In case you've read this work already before, I just want to say thank you. I have reposted this simply because it is such a close story to my heart and would like to share it again.
> 
> As this is a repost, I will probably be updating this regularly since I gotz all the chapters. :3
> 
> That's the only reason. Lol. Enjoy this Force Bond trope! xx

The mask never comes off. Or what’s half of it anyway. He spots her somewhere in the dark bowels of level 1997 of the Coruscant underbelly, finishing off a mark with the fewest credits to his name. She’s efficient when she does it; corners him somewhere in the dark alleys, pushes him harshly against a thick pipe beside a towering factory churning out poisonous gas characteristic of the undercity. He yelps for a slow moment, finally realizing his end in her hands. And then she hits his head once on the wall, plunges a double-edged knife into his chest, just a little below the rib cage, swift and sure. The man’s limp, still breathing but it takes no time until he’s dead, exsanguinating with his eyes wide open.

No one will take pity on him in the morning. Or, what little of the ‘morning’ is visible through these levels. It is something everyone lives with in the underbelly of the shining capital; deaths and how it’s wiser to pay them no mind than try and figure them out.

She smirks, inclining her head slightly and pressing a digit against an earpiece. _ “It’s a pleasure doing business with you, too.” _ Her voice is metallic when it passes through her mask, something she uses for both the toxic recycled air of the lower levels and for hiding her identity. All he ever sees of her are her big, brown eyes, emotionless even as her victim’s a vapid heap at her feet.

It’s ridiculous how attached he already is to this strange, strange woman. And it’s more than the fact that only three months ago, he’d been her mark.

** _Three Months Ago_ **

After the banquet, there was a private gathering of the Senators somewhere within the upper levels of the _Uscru_ _District_. He’d barely even remembered to come at the gathering over the rapturous chorus of applause to his assertion on the Senate hearing, his very first experience within the Republic. He’d never known what to expect, upon leaving his mother in D’Qar and showing up at the _500 Republica_ landing pad with Leia Organa’s name on his lips. He’d been escorted to a nice room already fully furnished with tributes to Alderaan culture.

It turned out, his host, a jovial Cerean, had been a former trader from within the Western Reaches who had been so fond of the late Padme Amidala that he was more than happy to make space for her kin. Qaff-ta’s ascent to the Republic he owed to the gracious Naboo queen’s unwavering trust in his capabilities. Thus, in honor of her death, he’d pursued the political lifestyle and finally managed to represent Cerea.

If Ben didn’t owe his appearance to all of the Senate members on the floor, perhaps he owed it at least to Qaff-ta. Though Qaff-ta would never say Ben owed him anything, and that was precisely why Ben needed to show up.

True enough, Qaff-ta stands there, garbed in fine robes and draped in sleek, obsidian jewelry that denoted his position. Though Cerea remained largely isolated from the rest of the galaxy for most of the millennia—what with their averse nature toward technology—after the Clone Wars, the Cerean president allowed for an ambassador of the planet to join the Republic if only to preserve their natural landscapes. 

Qaff-ta's predisposition to talk about Padme Amidala near constantly made him feel like Padme is standing there beside him, pushing him further to succeed, the memory fresh in his mind like she hasn't simply disappeared from the galaxy.

In the time it took for Qaff-ta to finish recounting almost every memory imbued with Padme’s presence, a svelte human girl occupies the stage. She is dressed elegantly, with drapery fabric that hung at once loose and tight around the modest curves of her form. Her wardrobe eluded any particular homage to any of the cultures present among the gathering. And perhaps that mystery is what inspires everyone to look on with an air of unabashed curiosity.

She twirls in fine silk cascading down her pretty shoulders as she lifts her arms and arcs them in time with the rich, jazzy pipes of the Bith. The small knobs holding the cloths against her shoulders fall further back in looped, glimmering cords of strung emeralds and topazes kissing tan skin, smooth and sensual, like the way her feet settle on the stage briefly only to move again. Her hips, squarish though they may seem, move easily, rippling the silk around her waist. And all about her, there are scattered splotches of light, the gems catching the ethereal light from a spotlight somewhere and the frosted golden silk casting an ethereal glow that complements the tan of her arms, her chest, neck—

And then, like a dream, as though she is nothing but a wraith, nameless in a crowd, Ben sees the last of her through her eyes, framed by long lashes. He wonders how he did so, if he’s merely been so entranced that he imagined seeing her eyes even as her entire face is swathed in lace. But he sees it, nonetheless, he knows because just before the lights went down, he can tell she’s looking at him, too.

The opening of the lights herald thunderous applause for the marvelous performer. It’s only a mere second, though, before everyone is returning to their conversations.

Ben’s already excusing himself to Qaff-ta, excusing himself for _ her _.

A hallway connects to an annex. It is long and spans the length between two skyscrapers. He finds her there, on the bridge, a thousand or so feet above the endless bustle of the ecumenopolis’ ceaseless air traffic.

“That was a splendid performance.” He speaks awkwardly, taking in the curve of her exposed spine, how it shifts just so slightly, how the strung jewels tumble between her shoulder-blades.

She giggles and it makes him smile. “How very diplomatic of you to say.”

“What else can I say?” He takes a tentative step forward as if she might scamper away if he rushes his actions. But she stays rooted, head only half-turned, as he continues, “It comes with the job.”

“And how eloquently you’ve put it.” This time, she turns around, frosted silken gold spinning about her hips like water. His mouth goes dry when she nears him and he actually has to remember all his rhetoric training as she places delicate hands against his chest. Her fingers are covered with rings, he notices, also dripping with precious jewels, clinking ever so slightly against each other when she pulls him just a little closer. 

"How's the Republic treating you so far, rookie?"

"How did you—"

She giggles again. "I've been here longer than you have. I can tell who's been at it for years and who's just fresh out the oven. The fabrics of New Alderaan suit you."

He blinks down at her, finding her eyes under lace, brown and brilliant. "You know Alderaan?"

"Like I said," she tugs him forward by the heavy _ chalcedony waves _ necklace adorning his high-collar embroidered robe. He should worry about the square pieces. But he doesn't. "I've been here longer."

"Do you perform often, too?" 

She purrs, there's no other word for it. Ben's arms drop at her sides, mustering just enough courage to coax her forward against him by holding her by the waist. She goes without protest. 

"Pay is good. So, yes." 

"If I were to say I want an encore?"

"Pay." She hums, finally, finally deciding to look at him voluntarily. 

And something happens there, in that window of time they stare at each other. Something clicks into place and suddenly he's hurled through images, landscapes, apparitions, more wraith-like figures shrouded in the dark, wrapped in hushed whispers and sideways glances. Not his. At the same time, his memories shift, memories of hours on end traveling in his father's Corellian YT freighter, the _ Millennium Falcon _ , playing _ dejarik _ with a grizzled Chewbacca and throwing a fit at a defeat—

And then it's over. He's back in real life. 

He's also standing with a knife to his throat. 

The woman in silk is beautiful. Dangerous but beautiful. 

"What did you do?" She demands, voice as sharp as her weapon's edge, cold against the skin of his neck. He gulps. 

"I- I don't.."

"Wrong answer." The knife feels colder, closer—

"Ben?" Someone calls from inside. He turns his head as gracefully as he can away from the blade and then Qaff-ta is bounding up to him. 

"Chancellor Vista is here. He would like to congratulate you on your first Senate hearing attendance." 

He hears Chancellor Vista’s deep voice, and goes giddy. He looks back, too, expecting a stab. But the woman is gone just as easily as she came to the stage looking marvelous.

"Let's go back inside." Ben says.

*

She doesn't hit her mark that day, Ben suffices, because it’s him. He’s still alive. Suddenly, it makes sense she’s singled him out of the crowd by looking into his eyes. He chafes at how pliant he’d been in her arms, how close to his demise he’d been and on his first day at the Republic no less.

He hasn't told anyone at the gathering that he'd been assaulted, very nearly killed. Not even Qaff-ta. He's quiet and socializing even after his very first mercenary encounter. If he’s being honest with himself, he doesn’t entirely trust the Cerean. It had been one of the first lessons his mother inculcated in him. _ Know your allies, Ben, not everyone with a smile mean good and not every sour face is an enemy._

She's very clearly an enemy, very clearly the image in the sparkling capital that brings his death. 

But he can't hate her. He can't even forget about her lithe, decorated fingers, the sultry drip of her strong core world accent, the tan of her skin, and the sway of her hips. 

He wants to see her again. 

*

He's tired and just a little frustrated after the territorial jurisdiction debate. A small faction has moved in on the galaxy, an organization bearing the same crest of beliefs of the Old Empire. They start out small, with repurposed ships and a meager crew ranging from Imperial sympathizers and fanatics to galactic citizens looking to overthrow the current Republic in hopes of a new world order. 

They gain control over Outer Rim territories first, those the Republic cannot reach. The planets with the pliant inhabitants they persuade into forming the beginnings of an army; those with hardheaded citizens, they enslave and intimidate, while resource-rich planets they utilize. An emissary from one of the planets within the Outer Rim stumbles, frazzled, inside the Senate building with a plea on his lips. 

This new destabilizing force is utilizing the regional powers of the Hutts, promising them over half of the remaining Mid Rim territories if they support the cause now. The Hutts are tough to negotiate with but are weakened by their insatiable thirst for territorial control. The agreement fights through tooth and nail before it's accepted by the most powerful _ kajidic _ under the Hutt Ruling Council. By then, the entire Mid Rim has already been promised to them. 

Because there's no Senator to represent the planet, he's been given the floor that afternoon, after only a glass of water. He insists what needed to be said should be said immediately and by the time he was finished, the Senatorial chamber launched into impassioned rhetoric. Policies are thrown, torn, and discussed, pros and cons abounded, arguments shot, arguments supported, and by the end of the day, what halts the debate is the fact that perhaps the Republic might not even be able to exercise powers within the planets. Further back within the Outer Rim, the planets reside within Hutt Space, and the Huttese are very particular about their territories. 

Stuck at an impasse, all the Senate does is adjourn and appoint someone to arrange something amiable with the Hutts. Even so, it's so up in the air that the threat of both a Civil and Galactic War displaces many on the floor. 

Qaff-ta tries to break the tension within the Senators by insisting they all revisit the _ Uscru District _ for dinner. Ben respectfully declines. He can't have the threat of death looming amongst all his other problems. Straight from the Senate Offices Building, he rides a private speeder back to the _ 500 Republica _, fully intending to take a shower, shove all his paperwork aside concerning the debate, and sleep soundly into the night. 

He finishes only two-thirds of his plans when she returns in his dreams, his tanned, golden wraith dripping in sparkling gems. Only now she's covered in a black, padded bodysuit that did things to Ben's whole being. Her hair is done up, pulled taut to a high ponytail atop her head. Her mask is black, the same black reflection-less apparatus encompassing the entire half of her face, covering even her nape. The earpiece is in place, snug within the chipped hardware. Like the first time he sees her, she's oblivious, unaware that he can, that wherever she is, his mind seems to follow. 

Her steel-toed boots fall heavy against the industrial floors of level 1782, its sooty atmosphere depositing strips and pockets of dirt on her face, below her eyes, around her ears. She's running, looking for something he doesn't see in the distance. He doesn't know how to come closer or control anything in this strange connection. But he lets his curiosity swim the distance between them and soon he's seeing things in her perspective. It's like he's standing behind her, moving in sync when she turns her head or slips a finger up on the earpiece one more time. 

_ "Ateema." _ Her voice is even. It makes him shiver just how close it sounds to his ears. _ "Mi bosco de Grutta." _

Ben hears what seems like a reply a few seconds after and he realizes its rattling in her subconscious, as well as the words she plans to say next. 

_ "Soong peetch alay. Bona nai kachu." _

_ "Wa wanna coe moulee rah?" _She counters easy. He must be really exhausted because he only recognizes the crude syllables as Huttese right after the woman's friend screeches a Huttese expletive to try and rattle her. 

He fails. 

She laughs at him. _ "Uth laynuma." _ She mumbles. 

For a split second, he assumes the line must have died. Something crackles back, someone with a deeper voice comes through, grumbling the same velar syllables. 

_ "Yanee dah poo noo, sweets patogga. Tah-koh tee womp rat e'nachu. _" He's assuming it's Grutta, the Hutt she intends to talk to. He expects her to balk again, in her silence. She doesn't. She contemplates, looking out at the dark corners of level 1782's junkyard of a level and nods to something in her head. 

_ "Jee oto yo blastoh." _

The Hutt grunts but senses that it's the end of the conversation. _ "Tagwa." _

The line is dead. 

There's nothing more that she does except keep looking around the level like it's a long lost kin. He wonders why. There's nothing in this level but junk, on both sides, both ends, only more are shrouded in the darkness beyond. He stays with her, though he doesn't understand it himself. He stays until she slinks back up, up more levels where light—though artificial—travel to her face again, until she's fading in the distance, until he's falling fast asleep. 

*

The third time he finds her he's falling half asleep on his desk atop a holopad beaming the new proposed bill by one of the Mid Rim Senators concerning exhaustive mining. It's undignified just how tired he already is this early in his career. He supposes sometimes you just can't avoid it. 

She's dreaming, too, he realizes, probably one of the few moments she's actually asleep. It occurs to him her sleep schedules are probably out of whack from all of her.. extracurricular activities. It's a quiet place, her dream, a peaceful blue nothingness, what you see when you open your eyes to a clear blue sky. It's all so quiet, so still. He doesn't recognize she's there until he hears sobs somewhere, looks down, realizes he's standing in a field of luscious green grass, and finally spots where the sobs are coming from. 

Dead. He sees them. A man, a woman and.. a child. A child in the middle of their cold, dead bodies, crying over the corpses. Blaster wounds gape at their heads, cauterizing flesh and making the holes prominent. Blank, wide-open eyes stare into the sky, the same sky he's admired just seconds before. 

He jolts awake because there's a knock at the door but he remembers the child, he remembers those eyes. 

*

She's back at it the fourth time she pops up in his head, still oblivious toward the connection or whatever this is. She's interrogating someone quite playfully, a _ Besaliskan _ body leaning over the edge of the chasm that is level 1995. She's sitting on—straddling, really—his back, the half of it that's not perched over the brink of nothingness. He's begging for mercy and she sucking on an _ oro _ bark stick he recognizes, gripped in leather-clad fingers. 

_ "Please! Please, I didn't mean to make it last this long! I had to pay the bills! I have a wife! And kids! Please—" _

She nudges him forward with strong thighs, edging him closer to the dark oblivion beneath. He's already suffocating without a mask, his sweat-slicked potbelly making it easier to slide him forward. 

_ "Grutta wants his money back." _ She says simply, picking off lint on her black gear. _ "No money, no freedom. Know how it is down here." _

_ "I-I live in CoCo Town!" _ He protests, like that's going to help his case. 

_"Not 'nymore if you keep that up. Where's the credits you owe him?" _

_ "I swear on my kids, I paid it for their schooling!" _

She slaps him, hard and fast, across the head. He shudders forward again with a gasp and a fresh cry for mercy. 

"_Please! Please! _"

_ "Wrong answer! You know me, Jimmy, I eat at your diner. I was there the first time you popped up in Grutta's private rooms at the Outlander Club, looking for help because your wife was dying and you can't afford our lovely city's high-end Grand Republic Medical Facility. So, you come to us instead. We're your people. We get your problems 'cause they're our problems, too. But we have to make adjustments, Jimmy, we have to pay our dues, fulfill our end of the deal. You know what I mean?" _

Jimmy is continuously sweating, nodding just so in fear that more movement will quicken his death. Ben sees him, strangely, very clearly, the way his eyebrows knit and rise—a man ready to bargain for his life. The woman is having none of it. 

_ "Do you understand, Jimmy? What's a "yes" for an old pal, huh?" _

_ "Yes, yes." _ He says, much clearer now. She nods, satisfied, but continues. 

_ "So you pay up. All of 10,000 credits. Here and now, or you meet the Maker somewhere down there. Your call." _

_ "I don't have them now! I just—I need more time to—" _

She shrugs. _ "Maker it is then." _

And then the man's free-falling into the darkness, accompanied for a short while by the woman. Ben's confused for a half-second, before she's pulling out the blaster she bargained to keep and shooting him point blank, in the space between his begging eyes, and dropkicks him, dead, to the depths of the dark level. In no time she's shooting a grappling hook up. It catches around a pipe as she swings up back to 1996, landing on her steel-toe boots with a clang and throwing her hair back. She fishes for more _ oro _ bark sticks, beautiful, as she nibbles on them. 

Ben stops. 

It's her face. The woman he's been losing sleep over, the woman he doesn't even know by name. 

"Who are you?" He mumbles. He thinks his voice doesn't carry through the connection, but it's too late when he realizes it does. She's whirling around, dagger out in a split second, scanning the level for an intruder she doesn't know is inside her head. 

_ "What the fuck," _ she mutters. 

Her hair's tumbling down, brown and wavy, long and frizzy from her high ponytail. It has him in tatters. He's silent more for his sake than hers. He doesn't know what to say. 

She's walking, because even though species around this part of the city are smart enough to distance themselves from her, a mercenary can never truly be still. The dagger is still out and her eyes are still scanning for potential enemies lurking. 

"I don't know how this happened. But you know me."

She spins again, snarling now, though elegant on her slender legs. _ "I don't." _

"You do."

_ "Karking hell, I don't. Show yourself!" _

"I can't." 

_ "Why?" _

He'll give anything to make this all easier for her to understand. But he doesn't even understand it himself. He goes with the most apparent conclusion, the only one that doesn't sound remotely as far-fetched as the other theories in his mind. "I'm in your head."

It's like someone dumped a bucket of water on her head because she's at once gaping and reeling from Ben's admission. 

_ "Bullshit!" _

"It's true."

_ "Oh, switch off!" _

He laughs before he realizes it, at how candid that moment had been, how it humanizes her, this slip of a girl in the tight black get-up. 

_ "What's so funny?" _

"You're actually quite humorous."

_ "And who the hell talks like _ that_? You sound like someone from the upper crust." _

There. The realization plays out in her head as vividly as the wisps of the _ Squid Lake _ at the Galactic Opera House. 

_ "You're an uppercruster." _

"You manage to be funny yet again."

_ "You're from the fucking upper-crust." _

She's bewildered and angry. He has no knowledge how to work whatever this is between them. But he barely sees the moment she panics before he's hurtled out of the connection so hard he viscerally shoots up from his seat. His private starship bobs slight in the sky, thousands of altitudes up, at the sudden movement. Ben's human chauffeur steers them over to the side of a skyscraper building, away from traffic and into safety. 

"Is everything alright, Senator Organa?"

No. "Yes."

"Would you like me to take you to the Medical Facili—"

"I'm alright, Chirilla. We need to be at that hearing."

Chirilla nods, casts his gaze forward and utters not a word of the incident until they get to the Senate building. When he returns that night, she's nowhere in his dreams.


	2. TWO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet more intriguing Kira and Senator Ben dynamics. ;)

Three months pass with no such luck between the Republic and the Hutts. Though their ambassadors have blessedly not been shot on sight when they landed in _ Nal Hutta, _ their request still fell on deaf ears. Hutt Space remains autonomous, and since no offer from the Republic can tip the favor of the Hutts away from the destabilizing faction without it being criminal, they cannot concede. 

Supreme Chancellor Vista insists the Senate should have seen it coming. "The Hutts have long since supported those in power to keep their autonomy.. Even the Imperial rule left them to their own devices. They are rich in resources and are tactical in ruling the many planets and star systems comprising their territories. The question is: how can we get them to behave towards their people so they won't have to worry about our interference should one of their own come to us for assistance?"

"The Hutts don't listen to anyone, Chancellor," mumbles a _ Roonan_, impassioned and angry. 

The chambers rumble with agreement from all galactic members. 

"Why don't we talk to the Hutt Ruling Council about it?"

Valla, a male _ Koorivar_, counters the argument smoothly, sounding a little exasperated. "The Huttese government will only recognize one of their own. If the _ kajidic _ rejects the proposition, it will never reach the Ruling Council."

"A Klatooinian has pushed the motion forward, stumbling in here with a plea like that. Their civilization has mounted a rebellion against the Hutts before, they can do it again."

At that, Ben steps forward. "In which they have become the losing side since the Galactic Empire had backed the Hutts. We are _ not _ launching a civilization into a war they won't win. We need to focus both our attentions towards this growing rogue faction _ and _its Outer Rim allies... A compromise needs to be made for the benefit of both Klatooine and the rest of the Outer Rim territories under the Hutts."

"Something we cannot do without utilizing some sort of catalyst!"

"War is _ not _ a catalyst." 

"It's sure as kriff the closest one."

"Enough," Chancellor Vista booms, glowing _ Chagrian _ eyes gleaming with finality, floating with a quickness parallel to his rage. "There will be no badmouthing in my chamber. We are here to quell the fire, not send it roaring up." 

He turns to the chamber, gazing out at the many hovering platforms at attention. "The Klatooines will not be going into war just as much as we are not going to jump into any more unresolved conclusions that culminate in dead ends. We need real solutions."

She's oddly in his head the moment the other half of the chamber launch into more arguments on behalf of Klatooine. 

_ "Klatooine lost." _

"I know that." He answers almost immediately. It's like coming up for air as she surrounds him again. Her chest is blood-soaked, her cheeks are tense and her fingers are clammy. He can feel her bloodlust in his bones. 

_ "But the First Order is not without weakness." _

"The First Order?"

_ "They're the faction you're debating about." _

"You know of them?" 

Qaff-ta, in the corner of his eyes, agrees with a nod first, his conical head pitching forward. He replies with a flourish, going around the chamber in his hovering platform to prove a point. He barely hears his argument over the woman saying 'yes.' 

"How?" 

_ "You don't ask the 'how,' rookie. You ask the 'now what?'" _

"You are suddenly an expert in politics."

_ "Hardly." _ She snorts. He refrains from finding it as terribly endearing as the fact that they commune together somewhere in their heads like teenagers protecting a secret. _ "All I'm saying is, like the Hutts, and the Anzats, the Twi'leks, Toydarians, Mandalorians, Cereans, Geonosians, Gungans, and the Bothans—every group of species are built with weaknesses, shatterpoints, jugulars you can locate just beneath skin and slice through. The First Order is not an exception. Just like the Empire had not been." _

"So you know what it is? Their weakness?" 

She snorts again. He really shouldn't be smiling, but he is. _ "If I did, why'd I tell you?" _

"Same reason you've returned after a three-month dry spell?" 

She goes quiet at that, halts in her steps. She somewhere within the dilapidated ruins of factory structures in _ The Works _, dragging her fatigued body forward. He's immediately racked with guilt. 

"I'm sorry. That was out of line." 

She laughs but it's only half mirthful. The debate is still going on and he's patting himself on the back with how well he's feigning interest. 

_ "I have no morals to live by so I, therefore, have no standard to compare all the conversational mishaps my friends make." _

"Friend?"

_ "Yes." _ She smirks, shedding a thermal detonator from a holster he hasn't seen before. It's slung around her shoulders on the right side of her body. She throws it to the warehouse she'd emerged from, standing by a meager distance because she's seen it all before. Seen so many things go up in flames before. He sees it in her eyes, how disinterested she already is. 

_ "It's a merc term we use to categorize all our marks." _

She disappears unlike the slow ascent of gray smoke in the sky, but like the abrupt blink of his eyes to reality. Once again she reminds him of his place, of hers, and how no matter how much he denies he enjoys her presence in his head, he can only lie to himself so much. 

*

He's not proud of being unable to answer Qaff-ta during the recession, not proud of excusing himself because of 'feeling sick' after the high octane debate on the future of Klatooine—especially since he's faked it to hide out in his _500_ _Republica_ suite out of paranoia. He doesn't doubt her capabilities, not even for one second. So he holes up in his room, never mind that he'll be declared absent for the rest of the hearing towards the afternoon as long as he feels safe within his walls.

He should have taken up the Jedi Order on that bodyguard proposal. He really should have, but somewhere at the back of his mind, he still knows that she won't be the one to land him the killing blow. He just.. knows.

*

A week passes by and small things look up for the case of Klatooine. A second envoy to the heart of Hutt space somehow convinces the _ kajidic _ of the sincerity of the capital towards its galactic citizens. And that sounds condescending, even to Ben, but Klatooine, afterward, was.. uncannily left alone, seemingly without repercussions. More than half the chamber is filled is dubious such a truce can last a considerable amount of time, so in a final attempt to hold onto the last fibrocord of order, the Republic designates an ambassador of Klatooine who will take trips once every two months to Coruscant to report on its planetary dispute and status with the Huttese. 

It was the most they could do given the circumstances and the Klatooinians were already more than grateful. The Senate session broke off early that day. It had only been 1300 standard hours and Ben still has the rest of the day to do.. well, _ not _ politics, he hopes. 

When he comes back to the _ 500 Republica _ , it's to a waiting bottle of Alderaanian wine in an ice-filled bucket at his table. Beside it, there's braised _ gornt _ meat nestled in a nice bed of fresh _ malla _ petals and _ ruica _ . There's flatbread, too, and a packet of _ oro _ bark sticks. 

He reaches for the holopad on his bedside table and sends Qaff-ta a quick thank you message for the meal and is both surprised and cautious when he replies; ‘What meal?’

_ "See somethin' you like, rookie?" _

Ben's nearly dropping the holopad when her voice pushes in and his eyes snap up. It's more lilt than he's used to. She sounds so close. 

"What are you—"

_ "Relax, it's room service, Your Worship." _

He sags in relief. 

_ "You're afraid." _ She purrs before he can right himself. 

He gulps. "Of course I am." 

_ "So report me." _

"What?" It's so suddenly and casually said that he wonders why he hasn't thought of it himself. He wants to say he's been busy, wants to get behind the meager success of Klatooine, but it's a shoddy excuse if he's ever seen one. 

_ "You know, to the authorities?" _ She mumbles, a little distracted by something. _ "I'm starting to think your senatorial prowess is not all it’s cracked up to be." _

He doesn’t want to. What’s wrong with him?

He blinks in his empty suite and sees—bubbles. Her voice carries over in his head again and all he can think of is that he needs to sit down. She grows heavier in his mind, headier, like it takes no effort at all for her to dominate his consciousness. 

_ "I think I have an idea what the hell this is between us." _

He's silent for a long while, wondering if he's passing out as the world devolves in gray grains and static in his ears. He's at once in a sterile, white-walled enclosed space with more bubbles. 

_ Maker_. It's a 'fresher. And she's in it, standing with her back to him, water sluicing down the curves of her elegant form. She's humming the tune of a song he doesn't recognize. For a while, he just stands there, transfixed as she moves. Until she insists for an answer. 

_ "You there, rookie?" _ The way she turns her head around makes the tips of her wet hair slap gently against her slick, glistening shoulder. 

He feels he's violated her, but can't find the energy to move anyway. He's transfixed. She calls him again. 

"_Ma bukee?" _

"You speak an awful lot of Huttese."

_ "It's a Force thing, says Ry'atta. You and me.. and the Force. Or something along those lines." _

"Ry'atta?"

He's pretty sure he's stopped breathing. She's standing before him, dripping wet in nothing but her skin. She can't see him, locate that he's standing there gawking at all of her. She slips a towel around just as quickly. The spell is broken. 

_ "He's the Anzati assassin within The Veil who killed that Takodanian senator one year cycle ago." _

"Sometimes I forget we're on different sides of this war." He's pretty sure he's asleep. He sounds so stupid already, vulnerable. 

She giggles again, his feet bring him to the sound of her voice. Stripped like this, she's a little more relatable, a little more human. 

_ "War? No. I'm not part of this chaos. I'm on the side of anyone who can afford my services." _

Just like that, because he's ridiculous and he doesn't know what it means to be connected to her, he says, "How much to see you again?"

She giggles again and the threads that connect their minds disappear fast with only the hum of her voice to guide him back to a reality without her in it.

_ "It doesn't work that way, pateesa." _

*

The woman works for Grutta the Hutt who lives somewhere in the _ Uscru _ district and funds a network of mercenaries known as _ The Veil. _Numerous sources from the Senate files confirm the organization is in existence, still operating despite so many crackdown efforts that have been launched since they began business.

The girl is around 20, human, he's sure. He's _ very _ sure. He blushes. 

Ben continues to list it down; bright hazel eyes, rich chocolate-brown hair, sweeping high cheekbones, button nose, a svelte physique with just the right amount of muscle, strong thighs, toned arms and legs, taut buttocks, squarish hips—he keeps all this in mind walking down _ Vos Gesal_. He remembers the way she looks like in black—his absolute favorite color on her—recalls the river of golden silk making her look like a deity, everything. 

He's looking for her. He's risking so much but he can't bear to care. 

There has been no correspondence from her for another full week. He's woken up both disoriented and filled with such a strange mix of relief and disappointment. In her absence, he musters up enough courage to go down and meet her in her own turf. 

He still wants to see her. 

_ Vos Gesal _ glares at patrons with acidic neon lights and signs in both _ aurebesh _ and the strokes of alien words. He tries to remember where the _ Outlander Club _is, minimizing the risk of recognition by not asking questions as to where to locate the club itself and sticking to the walls. 

A Rodian traveler once told young Ben that Coruscant was everyone's dream world. He's thinking about that now as he pushes inside what looks like a bar with low seats, alcoves filled with a colorful array of species across all the known regions, hunched over games of _ sabacc _ and flooded in red-hued lighting. _Coruscant is the place to be when you're trying to be somebody, anybody— _the ring of wonder in his voice is a promise to his ears, one he wishes he will continue to fulfill. 

He's studied Huttese gradually ever since he's heard her speak it. A stern-looking _ Lepi _the color of moss behind the bar looks him up and down with crimson eyes. 

"What can I get you?" He says, because he's unsure why Ben is speaking in Huttese at this particular bar. Especially when Basic is the most common mode of communication to more than half the employees in it. 

"I need to get some work done for me," Ben says, a trick he picked up from shuffling about silently in Rey's head whenever there's a slip of a chance he can. The _ lagomorph _looks at an emerging human female from the other end of the bar counter, motions her over, and mumbles: "Kid needs a job."

She blinks instantly though Ben can tell she's not as startled as she makes it appear to be. She's seen this before, she's part of it. She knows. So she nods and then motions _him _over. He follows willingly, discreetly mapping out possible means of escape in case things go awry. 

She takes him out back, or at least he thinks she does, before she's leading him into a turbolift and harshly reminding him, "8th floor. Left side's cordoned off, go there. And no looking an _ Anzati _ in the eye!"

The cordoned-off section opens to nothing except a dark hallway. Soon though, as he walks, he sees light, far away and small. But he catches it, makes a left and nearly stumbles into the broad chest of a lumbering _ Kerestian _. 

"Watch it." He mumbles in _ Kerestese _, voice harsh and artificial through breather tubes running down both sides of his tan cheeks. He nods apologetically, weaving his way through the strangest, most diverse collection of species he's ever seen in the galaxy. Even all of the Senate's 2,000 delegates have nothing on this. 

The lions' den. 

The man's voice comes back inside his head—_ It's also the perfect place to exist without existing, the place to become a nobody. _

At once, he is overwhelmed with this much amount of species lugging around gigantic blaster rifles and pistols in leather holsters slung around hips and shoulders. The Senator in him chafes at the fact that the latest gun control ordinance they just passed into an act is being blatantly ignored right in front of his eyes. 

A massive, tri-limbed _ Blood Carver _stands at a corner, balancing on bony knobs for joints, golden in the middle of a deep conversation with two stilted-looking assassin droids. One is a remnant of the Separatist assault droids; bearing the color of rust and the jerky movements of the model itself. The other is a curious assortment of mechanical parts seemingly held up by a lethally-powered brain circuit, if any of the binary beeps Ben hears is any indication. Give him a good meal any day and this droid can badmouth it in 7,000 different languages without draining its circuits. 

There's a wide sofa to his right occupied by an inebriated _ Noghri _ collective, chatting animatedly in _ Honoghran_. 

There are also human assassins, hovering with blasters at the ready and eyes scanning the place like a hawk. As well as near-human creatures lurking about in their albino skins and long, cartilaginous fingers. 

A fierce _ Codru-Ji _ stands off at one side, isolated and.. asleep. It appears to be female, with a screwed up face, axe lethal and heavy in one of its four hands. Ben’s heard all sorts of things about the _Codru-Ji_ from their conflict-stricken infancy which centered on political enemies within their society kidnapping each other’s offspring, all the way to their previous affiliation with the Sith Empire. It makes sense for such a tough species to work with equally tough allies, after all.

There were _Anzatis, Ganks, Kerestians,_ _Elominians, Arconians, Durosi, Bothans, Nightsister _hybrids, some species even flew, though only marginally, via scaly wings folded against their backs. There were _Dathomiris_, too, the females, garbed in black with fierce blood-red eyes, and males, skin the same splotched black and red like the late Darth Maul. _Barabels, Devaronians, Rodians, _the _Ishi Tib,_ even _Neimoidians, _who had a galaxy-wide reputation for only being as cowardly as much as they are greedy. 

Somewhere within the space, Ben also feels some very high-caliber mercs specializing in killing Jedi. His skin pricked. 

Another _ Lepi _ species is hovering nearby, passing drinks out to the mercenaries occupying the place and acting like he pays for their lodging. His long whiskers shift about as he speaks in heavily accented Basic and palming a chained _ Twi'lek _ slave girl sitting atop the massive tail of—

Grutta the Hutt. 

Ben sees himself cower, somewhat like the way his five-year-old self once did. It was the first time he saw his mother's startling _ Mon Calamari _friends who held high positions within the Rebellion for their strategic tactics. 

He's dealing with that type of nervousness now as he's staring straight ahead, looking Grutta dead in the eye, locked in place. The rest of the room's idle chatter dies down now that they recognize a new presence within their midst. They stare at him. All of them. Ben can only hope the hooded cloak provides enough cover. 

In the criminal underworld, you don't so much as look at a Hutt in the eye, no. Not unless you need something. 

Grutta the Hutt turns his massive head to the side, a slimy hand stretching to call over a human hybrid with mottled purple skin.

"The great Grutta would like for you to kindly state your business within these parts."

It takes a while for him to find the words he needs but he finds them either way. His voice quivers as he says, "I want to see a female mercenary within _ The Veil." _

The room launches in intrigue in several different languages. 

Grutta laughs, says something quite aggressively in Huttese, he's willing to bet, what with the humanoid blanching ever so slightly. 

"The great Grutta is asking how you intend to accomplish this task if you don't even provide a name for us to identify her by."

Grutta speaks again as the hybrid continues to translate. "You cannot possibly expect the great Grutta to call all his employed female mercenaries forward just for your pleasure."

Ben smirks, he's not sure how he still manages to act cocky but he thanks himself only just so slightly. He feels a blue-skinned_ Chiss _ sneer beside him. "I was told the great Grutta values his clients greatly. This does not make me feel valued."

This time, the translator blanches at _ his _ words. Ben suspects he still tries to translate it as cordial as possible, but the Hutts know when someone is trying to condescend them. He recognizes one or two expletives he's once heard from the woman he's expecting to see. 

"I assure you," the hybrid translates rapid-fire as Grutta snarls his words more than says them, "that the great Grutta values his clients provided that they are not disdainful and impatient."

Ben cuts the hybrid off swiftly with what he hopes is an argument that brooks no opposition. "Just do it."

Tension coils around the room, the closest species with guns around Grutta advance. The _ Twi'lek _ chokes as Grutta pulls on the chain tethering her to him. 

"For your impertinence, the great Grutta should.. should punish you," the translator tries, "but he finds your audacity endearing."

Grutta grins. "_Senator _."

The translator is quiet and so is the rest of the room. 

So much for going incognito. "_Now _ will you accommodate me?"

Grutta bellows pure delight, tipping his head back. The mercenaries hovering about lose some of the tension keeping their jaws snapped shut, keeping their lips from snarling. He shouts something in Huttese at the decorated velvet ceilings before the translator picks it up with ease. "You have greatly amused the great Grutta the Hutt."

He follows it up with; "In exchange, he will allow you only the name of the woman you seek within _ The Veil_."

Grutta blinks and sounds the syllables to what seems like a smug collection of sentences. 

"But you must describe her appearance only through distinct features."

All he has to do is revisit his list. Or, he can imagine her back in black, pretend like he hasn't already memorized the catlike fluidity of her body in tight black wrappings. 

"She has long hair, the most wonderful pair of hazel eyes. More lethal with a dagger in hand than a blaster."

Grutta grins, even the _ Twi'lek _ girl's eyes light up with recognition. Grutta keeps his eyes focused on him, awaiting translation from the hybrid as he lets his words pour out. 

"Kira is the assassin you seek."

"I wish to meet her."

"She meets clients outside the _ Outlander Club. _If you can find her, you can afford her, but she is yours only as long as your enemy draws breath."


	3. THREE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is still some of the best angst I've ever written.

He has no prior idea where Kira might meet her clients. Insofar as he'd been inside her head, he's only ever been there when she's either landing the killing blow or if she's in some state of undress. Only ever been there as she forces someone to shell out borrowed credits for Grutta alone. So he wanders around _ Vos Gesal_, trying to feel her within the connection. 

_ "What is this?" _He remembered asking Senator Qaff-ta's Jedi bodyguard one night after a particularly intense session in the Senate.

_ "What do you mean, Senator?" _ The girl had asked, the brown of her hair the same shade as Kira's. 

_ "A few days ago, I met an.. acquaintance. Now, I feel her still. In my head." _

Her gentle eyes widened in a way he'd never seen before. It took a lot to scare a Jedi, and it took a whole lot more to surprise them. But Jessika was surprised, he knew she was. Her grip around her lightsaber tightened before she asked carefully, _ "You are the son of General Organa, right?" _

_ "Yes." _ There was no denying _ that. _

_ "As well as Luke Skywalker's nephew?" _

_ "Well, yes. What does that have to do with anything?" _

She looked at him like he'd grown two heads. Perhaps he had, what with all the failed thinking he'd been doing. 

_ "You're Force-sensitive." _ She concluded, eyebrows knitting_. "And so is she." _

He'd felt shock along with a healthy dose of fear at what he learnt. He was Force-sensitive, his blood has _ midichlorians_. But he wasn't surprised he would be, no, his mother and his uncle were the children of Darth Vader himself, for kriff’s sake. He was surprised _ she wa_s. It was only reasonable he be fearful, not just for his life but for the other senators, the Jedi. If Grutta ever found out, he'd use her abilities for far more nefarious purposes. There was an influx of Jedi at the Republic from his uncle's academy on Yavin IV. He did not want to play a part in their foreseeable demise and this connection he had with her can very well put them in harm's way. 

_ "Is there a name for it?" _Had been his last question for Jessika. She'd shuffled a bit on her feet. Whatever it was she was going to say had clearly never been said often about the Force. 

_ "It's called a Force Bond." _

*

He asks around for Kira around _ Vos Gesal _still, sometimes describing her features if her name doesn't make their eyes flash with recognition. 

Eventually, he's covered so much ground around the _ Uscru _ district's harsh streets that he's almost ready to give up. Not one soul knew who she was.. He knows that now. He also knows the district's citizens have a penchant for playing around with tourists. He's very nearly lost his cloak after turning a corner one local told him to take. A burly _ Dowutin _ had shoved him so harshly aside that his shoulder still hurt from hitting the wall. 

He finds his way back to the _ Outlander Club_, and spots a cantina beside it. The _ Snapping Septoid, _ hangs a sign in _ aurebesh _. 

Ben's wasting no time in asking about Kira, describing her features to a shocked _ Dug _ in the process of tilting a metal pitcher for a weary-looking _ Togorian _ . Neither of them answer him, but the _ Togorian _ glares at him so venomously he thought he was going to start a bar fight. He just grunts after a while, gulping down the _ Tsiraki _ he ordered, its _ salakberry _ spoor unmistakable in the air. 

An _ Askajian _ notices him with a curious glint in her eyes, sauntering forward beside the _ Dug. _Her wrinkled face speaks of a hostility begotten by unfamiliarity, but though she speaks, it is not all too unkind.

"Yeah," she says in heavily accented Basic. "I know Kira. She's here often."

"Is she?" He's trying to make it seem like he's not interested but it's not working. The _ Askajian _ is smirking. 

"We know your type down here but Kira's no cabaret worker."

"I'm not looking for a cabaret worker."

"So that's how it is." Leaning back and nodding, she hands him a piece of _ flimsiplast _ with words written in sketchy _ aurebesh _. "Kira's the ticket if you want something done. She never misses a mark."

_ Club Kasakar _

_ Rik's Cantina _

_ Crimson Corridor _

_ Level 3204 _

He looks at it curiously. "Why doesn't she just take clients here?"

The _ Askajian _ laughs and it sounds so awfully fond. He blinks at her and for a while she's enraptured with the customers in her dilapidated establishment. "Kira's strange, you see. I ain’t never seen a merc with that much affection for families, be it hers or someone else's. She don't meet clients here for one reason alone: the people here don't deserve a merc in their midst. She can't stop her fellow mercs from killin' them if they get paid to do it but she can at least minimize that risk by not taking _ her _ clients here."

*

_ She never misses a mark. _

That's what the _ Askajian _ said. He wonders if he's walking himself to his grave as he stalks the urban canyon floors of level 2685. If his good luck's scheduled to run out only once he's seen her in the flesh again. Will she hold him at gunpoint, tip the nozzle forward in the gap between his eyebrows or force his mouth open and take the safety off of her _ bluebolt _blaster?

Or will she tease him? Draw out his presence long enough, stall him until a direct order from Grutta the Hutt filters out of her earpiece bearing his imminent death?

Will she slam him against a wall, too? Hit his head on the industrial pipes, hard enough to bleed, as she plunges a dagger thick enough to make him die out of shock, graceless and writhing with eyes wide open?

He arrives at _ Club Kasakar _ trying to maintain the right frame of mind. 

_ She'll never kill me. _

*

He doesn't know what to expect after he stays at _ Club Kasakar _ for the rest of the afternoon, waiting for her. He visits the _ Crimson Corridor _ next before he's decided to go back to the _ 500 Republica _to rest. He stays there for three straight hours, just walking around and scanning the crowd for her elegant neck, her distinct high ponytail—nothing. He feels her out in his head, too, but she's as closed off as that fateful day before she disappeared for three months without warning. 

He comes home only when he's already too tired to do anything other than sleep. 

Ben goes home eventually, since the Senate is in session again tomorrow. 

*

He's not quiet when he comes back stumbling inside his suite that night; not quiet when he shucks his sprawling robes and steps inside his bath. 

He's crying, racked with a trauma he's so sure he'd forgotten. The images haunt him again. Images of power he does not want. They have ridden him off it at five years old, why is it back now? Maybe it’s the knowledge that someone else is inside his head again. 

He's wet and naked when he comes out, still dripping wet from his shower. 

A withering old man's long, knobby fingers seize his throat. He knows he's a wraith; he doesn't even have a name to the face. The Force Bond—because now at least that has a name—tremors despite him trying to keep it still. Far away, it cannot be ignored by Kira any longer. He's laid bare physically and mentally. He's kneeling beside his bed, breathing hard and fast, sweating through the soapy wetness drenching his skin, when she comes back, dressed like a dream, sounding like a siren. 

_ "Rookie?" _

"Ben," he bites out in agony almost instantly. "Please, _ pateesa _, call me Ben."

Silence, his pitiful state is making her stop in her tracks, wherever she might be. But she concedes, brisk breath coming out in a shaky sigh. 

_ "Ben," _ she mutters. _ "It will be alright. I'm here." _

He doesn't know why she wants to be, what's making her stay. She has no obligation, no responsibility over him, over his breakdown. But he's more than glad to feel her there, to know someone's there to make him feel a little better. 

The terrifying nightmare fades, and it is replaced by her bare face. She has awoken from a sleep she desperately needed, her eyes are drooped and squinty though she tries to console him. Her hands are wound around her sheets, fingers curled around in rising worry. Her hair is a mess, lips chapped, she's wearing a breast band—

_ "You’re an idiot for trying to look for me_."

He finds he doesn't care if she's taken to insulting him the moment she returns in his head. He gets the feeling he would prefer her harsh honesty to any pretentious, generic response. 

Ben allows himself a laugh, shuffling back up to his feet, standing under the light of Coruscant's four moons filtering through his windows in complete nudity.

She doesn't blush, of course she doesn't. There is no perverse interest in her. She knows what it means for someone to bare themselves whole, knows it merits respect. 

"You're not exactly easy to find."

_ "Didn’t it ever occur to you that I might not want to be found?" _

"I'm not stopping."

Another silence. He knows it’s more cautious curiosity than surprise. 

_ "Why?" _

"I want to see you."

_ "No one could want to see anyone so much." _

"I do."

She laughs. She stands up in the dark, clad, he now sees, in only her underwear. Again he's struck with a curiousness that exceeds all his expectations of her. 

_ "My parents didn't want me." _

He remembers her memories, the short but strong element that made her who she was now. 

"They were murdered."

She laughs again, it's chilling just how calm it sounds even as the words that follow make his skin prick with dread and sorrow._ "They killed themselves, pateesa." _

They're standing together, he sees, caught in the same border of sleep and wakefulness. He's standing in front of her, and she's standing in front of him. She sees him now, too, so that no matter where they are, they are together. And then she's pushing him back to the memory he's just mentioned without preamble. A whirlwind of chaos—

_ "What are you?" _A lady screeches in fear, blanching, turning an awful shade of white at the torn tawny, slimy flesh of a Gungan that's been shredded to pieces by her own little stubby fingers.

She doesn't answer. She doesn't see what's wrong with the situation, doesn't see just how badly her father wants to fling her to the lake. 

_ "The Gungan wanted to drown me." _The sound is her voice, more firm now that she's released from the confines of infancy, cutting through the delicate veil of the memory. 

The memory shifts—he sees the dead eyes of the Gungan before he's flung inside an awful excuse of a home, somewhere within the bustling streets of a planet—

_ Naboo_. Her mind supplies him. 

_"Your daughter is a killer!"_ A Gungan guards bursts through their home. Her father takes her in his arms, running far away even though it is futile. _“She killed the prince!”_

The lady has run forward first, lost in the thicket, waiting for them. But the Gungans know these parts. They are intercepted. Young Kira wants to protect her kin. She jumps. The Gungan aims with his spear but it is forcibly snatched from his hands. She lands a blow to his face, her hands are small but they are with purpose, powered by a well of power she can’t put a name to. The Gungan rears back with a bruised face. The other Gungan runs behind to back his companion but she turns around faster, tilting the spear forward as he falls uncontrollably to his death.

The spear plunges his heart while a sickening gurgle of blood splatters her clothes. 

The other Gungans try to edge closer, hissing to scare her. She is not scared. She pushes the spear deeper in the Gungan's chest so it comes out the other side as she stands up with fresh, vindictive bloodlust. She stomps so hard on the downed Gungan's face; his skulls smashes. In astonishment, she finds she can fling them to the lake with one flick of her wrist. Soon there's only the two Gungans at her feet, one with a bashed in face, the other with a hole through his heart. 

Her parents are looking at her with fear other than love or adoration, or gratefulness. 

_ "I protected them. I wanted to protect them.. I loved them. But they took a blaster bolt to their heads—they didn't even listen when I screamed at them to stop." _

That part is kept from him, the horrible act of their suicide. He's back in his suite with her, noticing that he's cried again but this time it's on her behalf. 

_ "I loved them so much." _

"I never knew them, but I know you, even in increments. At least know that whatever it is you'd done, it doesn't define you now."

She laughs again because it's the most ironic thing she's ever heard._ "On the contrary, pateesa," _ she says_, "it does." _

"And here I thought I was finally serving my life's purpose."

_ "That is?" _

"Making you happy."

_ "Senator Organa, may I remind you—" _

"Please," he pleads, "call me Ben, Kira."

_ "Please," _ she says, her visage blurring rapidly, _ "call me Rey." _

When he opens his eyes again, his room is still empty and the moon is still out.

He is no longer afraid of the past.

*

He's too elated when he wakes up in the morning with the slight ring of her voice still in his head. He doesn't even care that he has to find her again, that she didn't really give him anything that might aid his search for her. Ben thinks it's because she likes the chase. She's a merc, after all, their days are filled with risks and chases. It's unhealthy how this woman can make him go to bed without his clothes on.

Checking back to the Bond is like second nature to him by now, though he knows she'll still probably shut him out whenever there are things she needs to do without his interruption. He lets it slide. He's already so glad that she's even allowing him access to some of her memories, even guiding him through them like she had with her parents' demise. 

Suddenly, he is fully awake, long past the point of dreamy when he remembers how much they hated her at such a young age. How consumed they had been of hatred that they would rather take their own lives than try to understand their children. 

With sleep-heavy, jerky movements, he locates the _ flimsiplast _ sitting on his bedside table. There are two more places he hasn't visited. 

_ Rik's Cantina _, a place he's not entirely familiar with, and Level 3204 in which he knows some of his mother's core world Rebellion buddies resided in. It's a level filled with apartments and community centers, a healthy amount of cantinas and diners. There's no shortage of criminal activity in the Coruscant undercity, level 3204 is not exempted. But where the lower levels are crawling with every type of criminal imaginable in the galaxy, the 3204th level has a more forgiving criminal demographic. 

Ben dresses quick and efficient, garbed in a simple tunic and pants, he shuffles under his heavy cloak. The door is sliding open when his skin crawls with excitement at her presence. 

_ She's _ here. 

His head whips to the balcony where, sure enough, she's sitting precariously on the parapet, looking down at the city's hustle below. He's frozen in place, stuck halfway through his door because she's sitting in a _ tomuon _ wool tunic the color of sunset and it makes her hair look marvelous. 

She's not wearing a mask when she turns her head around just so, strands floating in the wind, delicate brown tendrils coming loose from that elegant ponytail. She smiles, maskless. 

"You know, you really should rethink your stay here. It's very dangerous. The security is _ very _ poor."

"What are you doing here?"

She shrugs—Rey—swinging her legs up and over. Too soon, she's striding close to where he's still frozen. She takes his hand and his feet follow her lead, until he's out on the balcony, too. Ben's mind is reeling, his grip tightens around her fingers like he's afraid the wind will carry her along with it. 

As if she reads his mind—which she is, technically—she chuckles, tugging the hood of his cloak up. 

"I've come to take you away, Ben."

He yelps when she tugs him up and over the parapet, landing square on his buttocks in an upholstered leather seat aboard a dilapidated _ repulsorlift airspeeder _, finding her on the pilot seat grinning the way he often does every time his mother takes him to the Festival of Lights. 

"You ready, Ben?"

He's breathless. It's more than just the fact that they're a little too high up, more than the fact that the early morning fog is just thinning out from the atmosphere. 

"Yes."

*

He's mildly surprised she's taken him to the Monument Plaza. He's expecting the red-hued environment of the _ Outlander Club _ again, or the domesticity of level 3204, at least. Or one other location printed in _ aurebesh _ on the _ flimsiplast _ the _ Askajian _ had given him. 

She swats his chest a little as he's alighting the speeder. 

"Those are for clients, silly." She chides, taking his hand again and pulling him towards the center of the plaza. Her eyes light up at the sight of the peaks of the two long-buried mountains, reaching delicate fingers to feel its surface. 

He finds he can move his muscles. "I'm not a client?" 

Her response is quiet. "Not at the moment."

"No?" 

She looks at him with a slow, wry smile, as though she’s just warming up to the fact that he’s running around the city with someone like him. "Just come over here, uppercruster."

Maybe she is.

He follows, stepping slowly and carefully because half his brain is still afraid she'll disappear if he draws too close.

"What about Grutta?" He asks, as she's taking his hand once again and leading them down all manner of storefronts. This part of the city is in perpetual wakefulness, everyone is in motion, but with her holding him, it's like everything is motionless. 

Rey hums, looking for something. "What about him?"

"Wouldn't he be looking for you?"

She grins. "You were there; you saw how many he has at his disposal."

"But—"

"Here we are!"

He reads the sign. "The Dewback Inn."

A grumpy-looking _ Nikto _ shuffles out on wobbly legs and hisses at him. Rey pulls him away just in time. He stumbles behind her back. She grabs the _ Nikto _ by the collar and instantly he's assaulted with the musk of _ Mummergy. _ To his surprise, she speaks rapid-fire _ Nikto _ directly to his face, fearlessly meeting his obsidian gaze. The _ Nikto _ mumbles what he's willing to bet is a profanity, but she is unfazed, turning around to him. 

"You okay, Ben?"

"Yeah. What did you tell him?"

Rey shrugs, “That he’s a nerve burner that’s one step away from meetin’ the Maker.”

He grins, unbidden. He knows it’s bad, what she said, but he smiles still, like an idiot. “That’s not very nice.”

“I’m a bad girl.” She smirks. “Besides, the lower levels are filled with assholes like that. Better be an asshole back to them.”

“My profession requires me not to be.”

She grins, pulling him close by taking his hand again. He wonders if his heart has ever beat this loudly before, or if she can hear it from where she’s standing, if she minds that his hands are rather sweaty, and he’s rather breathless—

“Not down here.”

He smiles. “You’re right.”

Even as they're gorging together, she doesn't let him go. 

*

Ben decides she's more beautiful like this, the sunset around her body makes her look warm. The smile on her face as she takes in the scaling height and might of the Senate Hall chambers is forever imprinted in his mind. 

"Why'd they abandon it?" She asks, looking around as slow sunlight from cobwebbed and dusty sprawling glass walls flood the interior of the building. 

"Old structures are traded for new ones every time in Coruscant. It had simply gone old." He likes this Senate Hall better, he thinks, because people like her can be in it. It's not snobbish, stoic, and elitist like the new Senate Building where pretentious senators share their thoughts under the guise of a unified goal to make the galaxy a better place. He shakes his head. He believes in politics, he has to. For the sake of the galaxy. 

Rey reaches out to him again, the worry on her face making his heart squeeze painfully. 

"Am I boring you?" 

"What?" He blinks. "No, no, you aren't. Why would you think that?"

"You've gone quiet." She blurts and it's then he realizes she's different when he's here, when she's not trying to off him. All the bravado is lost, all the fight, all the heat is gone, as though a simple wardrobe change causes such a shift in her personality. But there's a determined look in her eyes that tells him it's still her in there. 

He draws close to her, just an inch close, just enough. "What led you to this decision?"

"I—" she stutters immediately, before she squares her shoulders back into place. "I don't know."

Ah, so he's not the only one feeling stupid for his lack of restraint when it comes to her. He smiles. "You'll know later, sweetheart," he can't hold his tongue, it's all rushing out. "We can find out together."

She snorts but he knows she agrees. 

*

He comes back to her for the next two weeks after that. He waits for her patiently at the Old Senate Hall every after session and no matter how late it is, she finds him there. She's thoughtful and less snappy around him. Her hands are clammy sometimes when there are bloodstains on her fingers, he never says anything about it. Or when she smells like the strong musk of liquor and smoke. They laugh and he narrates boring facts to her at the Galactic Museum, and even if it's that, or ranting to her about the simplicity of the plaques, about the mediocre way in which they've retold such a rich culture, she's attentive. 

Once when a waiter at the _ Manarai _ blanches when she swears in Huttese so loudly the whole restaurant whip their heads around to chide her, he glares at all of them. He’s made the mistake of inviting her over to his suite again, plying her with baked _ dru’un _ slices in fish sauce, _ chushnip, Fromirian roast queg, _a bottle of Merenzane Gold, and forgets he even thought it was ever a mistake.

She takes him to Happyland, too. He finds the name funny. But then a nimble _ Jenet _ snatches his holopad clean out of his fingers and she darts after it, intercepting its runaway by kicking it square in the jaw. 

He's seen her bloody a species. He thinks none of it. 

They've taken a trip around the Coruscant train once with no particular location in mind and ended up in the CoCo Town district where they got midnight dinner at Dexter's Diner. 

He kisses her for the first time one night when he invites her a second time inside his suite. This time, there is no gourmet dish waiting on his table, no fancy liquor he can use to make her stay, no fancy meal to make her smile that rare, genuine smile. 

She'd broken down after having one too many glasses of _ Chandrilan Blue '439 _ and he'd been there to catch her. She mumbled of scratched numbers on metal walls in backwater planets, of parents she still loves, of friends she had to leave in favor of her new life, of Naboo, the lakes and shores and forests she so adores. Even after she vomits and he cleans her up and ties her hair, she cries against his shoulder, his deep midnight blue tunic reaching up to her thighs. Rey'd held his face in a blurry haze of alcohol and pulled him down without preamble, like she was wont to do. She tastes like alcohol and water and slightly of vomit but he hadn't cared. He remembers not being able to move until she let his lips go, and he only takes a shaky breath out, asks her if it's okay, before he's kissing her again. 

The midnight blue tunic finds itself crumpled on the floor until the morning. He wakes up to her sleep-warm, bare chest and arms and remembers the last time he'd been well-rested. He comes up empty and swears he wants to see her again. 

*

Rey disappears in the week that follows the night she spent in his suite. He tries not to feel hurt as he waits at the old Senate Hall, still, well into midnight, hoping she'd come. She doesn't. 

She's tried to block her side of the bond, too, but their trysts had so far made it almost impossible for either of them to do so. Ben's decided he's keeping his open no matter what. She's on a killing spree, is what he's managing to glean from her mind in her absence. For reasons he doesn't understand, the underbelly is abuzz with mercenary jobs. More than it already is. On a regular day, Rey offs one criminal or trader or merchant or—he hates it but he'll never tell her—a regular citizen some bigwig's trying to settle a score with. Now she's disposing them fast and efficient, sometimes three get the bad end of her _ bluebolt _blaster's nozzle in only one day cycle. Other times she's rounding up unlucky debt-owers to Grutta so he can torture them himself. 

When he tries to talk to her, to ask her how she's doing because he terribly misses her, she curses him in Huttese and keeps on killing because it's the only constant in her dire life. 

Problem is also brewing within the Senate. The faction has gone unexpectedly quiet and the Republic is thrown into paranoia. Guards are secured for every Senator, no one is to roam around without a Jedi guard, even Ben. It becomes hard, he realizes, to think about her well-being, or want to be with her. Because he's sure that if he so much as tries, no one will spare her life. 

She's scum and irredeemable in the Senate's eyes; part of an anarchic culture fueled by greed and revenge. 

Ben remembers her eyes and has to disagree, remembers her lips, so soft against his own, her legs strong, scaling his waist wonderfully, her fingers on his face, her thumb in his mouth—

She jolts at that memory and he's apologetic because he hadn't been sure she'd respond. 

She did. 

_ "Stop that." _

"I miss you." He admits miserably, thumbing the _ flimsiplast _ list where she meets her clientele. It's more than a little stupid he's still kept it, even though he already knows she has the perpetual scent of smoke and sulfur, iron and sweat in her skin, knows she's got an odd fixation on Alderaanian cuisine, and the closest thing she has to a friend is a _ Lorrdian _ merc named Salis who’s so consistently pursued by the Coruscant Underworld Security Forces that he’s long gone into hiding.

_ "Don't miss me." _

"Can I see you?"

_ "Busy—" _she gets out before his brain supplies the sound of flesh being torn. 

"I can't sleep."

_ "Not my problem." _The sound of wet skin filters louder. A whole bar somewhere below reeks of death, various life forms swimming in their own blood, deep wounds across their chests gurgle rich red blood, sickening green, and purple. Ben knows she could have done it cleanly, the way she likes to. A cauterized wound straight through the heart, between the eyes, damaging grey matter, stabbing and letting her victims grapple uselessly as their lives evaporate in the wind, twisting their necks to sever valuable veins—this is done to unwind. This cruelty is her solace; death centers her, being able to deliver it makes her feel like herself.

The _ Gran _ bartender is slumped on the counter, a final sweaty glass of glowing _ Durindfire _ is placed in his pockmarked hands. She snatches it up and downs it quickly, wincing only slightly. 

_ "I could do this to you, too." _She's lost when she's drowning in bloodlust. _ "I can kill you here along with the rest of them. It doesn't matter who you are to me. A big enough price on your head can change that." _

"So kill me then." 

She's quiet, rounding the counter to fish out a bottle from one of the shelves. 

"Kill me the next time we see each other."

_ "There _ is _ no next time." _

He watches her down a shot of _ Flameout _ before speaking again, gritting her teeth as it jets painfully sharp down her throat.

"You can't kill me, can you?"

She slams the bottle on the counter and with it, the bond.


	4. FOUR

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooooh boy. That last bit on the trailer got me feeling super in love with Mandokarla Rey now. Wbk, Dark Rey, wbk. Anyway, this is the last installment so, enjoy! xx o u o

He's back at the _ Snapping Septoid _ before he knows it. This is dangerous. The underbelly is not the place to be when you're in Coruscant—ever—but she's got him ensnared. She doesn't even need to try. The _ Askajian _ , Myna, she has a name now, looks worried because he knows he looks like he hasn't slept in days. The tough _ Askajian _ woman is fraught with worry, six sagging mammary glands moving as she hobbles closer. 

"This is not a good time, Ben." She knows his name. There is unusual kindness in unusual places—such is hers. 

"Where is she?" 

He doesn't want to come back without seeing her. He'd ditched his Jedi guard with so much difficulty, he's breaking the rules. 

"I can't tell you—"

"Please, Myna. I'm worried about her."

Because there's a crackdown on mercenary activity. Myna knows it and that's why half the diner is empty, why the _ Outlander Club's _ once garishly blinding neon lights are subdued, why the _ Uscru _ district is wrapped in silence, broken only when the occasional petty thief steals a purse, or runs with smuggled weapons. The Hutts did not like the Republic’s attention to Klatooine, kept it under wraps before striking—the capital city. Coruscant’s response: a crackdown on criminal activity.

"Ben, you know Rey. She wouldn't want you here. For your sake."

"She's here, isn't she?"

Myna falls silent. 

"Answer me, please, Myna. I can't—Salis is dead."—he's jealous of Salis, that roguish gray-eyed, tan-skinned human but he never says—"I have to see her, I have to know she's alive. That they hadn't gotten to her yet. Please, Myna—"

"Ben, please—" Myna pleads but Ben's already trying to brush her aside. She stands her ground and glares at him, now past the point of reasoning with him. "Rey isn't here—"

"Myna," a voice calls behind Myna. "It's okay."

But she turns on her heels just as he stumbles past Myna, never stopping her pace even as he nearly trips in his hurry to catch up with her in a winding hallway that led to the back of the diner. A door to his left hisses open, the one he saw her step through, and he scales the stairs two steps at a time. At the very top of the staircase, his eyes adjust desperately to darkness. Artificial red lights flood the cold duracrete floors. She's silhouetted in the harsh glow, frozen solid darkness against angry crimson. 

Ben is dimly aware this is some sort of storage room, his feet take him to her but he stops halfway when she turns. It's only then he realizes she's barefoot, her legs are bare, too, and the tunic she’s wearing is all too loose that she’s swimming in it.

"I don't have much time." He gets out, blinking at the light strapped on his comm telling him the Senate's probably already looking for him. It’s just a communicator. He’d long since disposed of his tracker.

Her voice betrays no emotion. "Then why come at all?"

"I had to know you were safe."

"I am. You can leave now."

"Rey, I—"

"You need to remember your place, Senator. As I remember mine."

"You never seemed to care about my place before when we were eating out and going around Coruscant. Why now?"

Rey ignores his plea. If he wasn't shrouded in the darkness, he's sure she'll see his watery eyes. He's learned to steel his voice but not control the nuances of his face. _ You're an open book, Senator Organa _, Qaff-ta hums with light fondness in his mind. 

"You tame people like me to follow the law, and I get paid to kill people like you for it. Do you honestly think there’s a version of our futures that we can be together?"

She's right, he knows she is. She can pull a blaster on him, or slash his thick robes open for a cleaner shot at his heart. _ A knife never runs out of ammunition _ , a _ Myneyrshi _ saying she’s so fond of, she'd said once in his head, once when he'd been sleepy and asked why her favorite weapon is designed for close-range combat. 

Ben has let her teach him the various weak spots of every alien species he can possibly think of and has not regretted doing so in the morning when he awoke and remembered how excited she'd sounded. 

"What if I don't care about my place? About yours?"

She grins condescendingly, her gaze is hot and framed with a terrifyingly calm hostility. "Then you’re no different from the First Order, Senator."

"Rey, please—" His lungs constrict as she darts in his direction, pinning him so hard against the wall and keeping him there with a fist around his windpipe and a knife at his throat. It smells of pungent blood and is at once warm and cold and squishy and smooth. She pushes it harder that it nicks his skin. The wound is small but the longer she keeps the blade there, it gapes, feeling very close to his imminent and bloody death.

"Grutta knew, hotshot—" she pants, watching old blood mix with new on her blade. "Grutta knew you were coming for him. Knew what the Senate was doing—you cannot keep secrets from the underworld. _ We _ live in its shadow, _ we _ make it sparkle in the dark night.”

Ben falls silent. He's gulping down oxygen as she tightens her fingers around his throat. Rey angles the blade just so, letting the pointed edge cut a clean line on the side of his jaw, up and halfway his cheek. It’s a thin red line at first, before it gapes again, letting more blood gushing out. 

"Wanna know how?" She talks through gritted teeth, leaning closer and watching fresh blood paint her dagger. Her eyes flash with bloodlust, her brain thrashes with adrenaline. She smiles. "He used this thing between us. I met you only so I could off you. Your price would pay a new life for me. I can board the next freighter bound for the Outer Rim as soon as I'm done with you and have enough credits to live out the rest of my life away from the Republic—away from people like _ you _—"

"So do it," he's lightheaded, blood dripping on the side of his face and eyes hooded because the asphyxiation is cutting off his oxygen— 

"Get it over with, Rey, like you've always wanted to." It's said so quietly he wonders if she even hears it. 

She can't tear her eyes away from him, her nostrils are flaring, her grip's tightening. It’s so easy to push there, to slash across tissue and vein, get to the good stuff and get it over with. She’s done it so many times, doesn’t even blink, doesn’t even blanch, flinch, remorseless, cold, empty. She can do it now, now that she has a chance, now that he’s practically offering himself on a silver platter, and—

She lets him go, sagging on the floor on her limbs just as he is. He’s gulping down enormous amounts of much-needed oxygen. It's contaminated with dust but he pays it no mind. His blood paints crimson petals on the floors, looking almost pale mixed with the same red light.

As soon as he gets enough air, he crawls towards her and ignores the way she flinches and tries to kick his side as he wraps her around his arms, pulls her to his chest. It's awkward, and uncomfortable because they're on the dusty floor and she's struggling to get out of his grip. He doesn't let her go, never learnt how he ever could. 

"Kriffin’ get off me—" She sobs, trembling.

"I love you." He mumbles against her exposed neck, smelling like smoke again. He kisses the column of her throat, tasting sweat and blood. 

Rey doesn't move for a long while, frozen in his arms. When she does move again, it's to maneuver her way out from his crushing arms to pin him down on the floor with both her hands. 

"You are a kriffing idiot." He whimpers when she kisses him, all teeth. She breaks his skin and he moans from it. They share the taste of iron and salt. She's crying so hard she's shaking. Her grip slips from his hands and he winds one hand in her hair, the one settles, a heavy weight, on her hip. It's warm and cozy and not as frantic as their kiss. She sees blood when she breaks away, sees blood trailing the side of his cheek—she darts a tongue angrily at the wound she'd decorated his beautiful face with, lusting over his scent, the iron tang of his blood. It keeps on coming out and she laps it up religiously.

Ben groans, guttural and just a little on the edge of insanity. She grinds down to an impossibly hard appendage when she hears it and he's tearing her tunic right down the middle before capturing her in a kiss again. 

"Rey.." The way the single syllable of her name sounds on his tongue sends her mind into a frenzy. Before long, she's grinding down and panting along with his melodic groans. The seams are torn, her hair has long since come lose, and bathed in blood red light, she's like a beautiful nightmare. 

He fumbles with his pants when she starts to, helping her peel it off him. He pulls his legs up for a moment, letting her back rest on its bended length, slows down even as she's grappling frantically against his clothes—and touches her glistening, wonderfully exposed sex. 

"Rey, my lovely Rey—" his moans come from a deep, suppressed place. Her walls flutter at the sight of his hazy gaze, the absolute adoration in his eyes, the weak whimper—

Her underwear is absent, so that when he finds the bundle of nerves under the folds and presses, she grits her teeth so hard.

"Shut up—" she chokes when he slides a finger inside her. She's so wet and tight his cock twitches with interest, nestled against her inner thigh. 

"You're so tight, sweetheart. I wonder how your pretty little cunt will feel around me—"

"Shut up—ahh—" She arcs when he slides another finger inside, and he’s panting with a lightheaded euphoria brought about by both the inviting heat of her cunt and his mild blood loss. He loses control over his bended knees as they fall to the floor. Rey braces herself with hands on his chest, fucking his fingers. His thumb comes back to rub frantic circles on her clit, her walls contract along with it. 

"Rey, oh, sweetheart." He's hoarse and his voice feels scratchy, bleary-eyed with pleasure, he tries to keep his eyes open, capturing her lips in a messy kiss. 

"I—hate—you—" she says when he lets go of her wet lips to mouth at her pert little breasts through her tunic. One hand pulls up to slide the garment off her shoulders and he takes her bare breast in his mouth and bites. 

Her orgasm is so sudden that the fingers he had inside her tremble with the force of it. Ben growls, and even in the harsh light, he knows he's turning purple with how much he wants to be inside her. 

She paints his fingers white and uses his own hands to wrap around his cock. This time, he chokes, nearly coming undone at the sight of her cum painting his swollen cock. 

"I'm not—sweetheart, I'm not going to last too long—"

"You'll last. You'll last long enough to cum inside me."

A vicious growl is ripped from his throat as she shoves him inside her in one fell swoop. It takes all of his self-control to keep from shooting his spend inside her every time she squeezes around him. 

"Sweetheart, I—"

"Rey," she bites, picking up the pace. His stomach is sore, his brain is short-circuiting with lust, his fingers are bruising her hips. "My name is—Rey."

Her fingers against his fresh wound does him in, and suddenly he's cumming so hard his whole body is shaking. But it's not from the affectionate way she looks at him as she milks him dry within an inch of his life. It's the words she says next with such breathless honesty that makes him hold her impossibly tight as he nips her earlobe through his orgasm, so intense he's seeing stars. 

"Stay."

*

There are dust mites when Ben wakes up, floating aimlessly and languidly in the air in the red light. His head is heavy, his limbs feel one step closer to atrophy by the second, and his legs, parted only slightly, feels tacky and smells like—sex. 

"Rey?" He mumbles, relying on his touch senses instead of his muscles. He can move, yes, but he feels like if he does, his head is going to fall off his shoulders. 

Something shifts beside him, and suddenly he detects delicate curves and fabric, smooth bare legs pressed against his own. A hand comes up to his chest, slender and sticky with something when it finds his cheek. 

"Hello, Ben." She says. Rey says. He groans when he remembers their fornication, winces when he remembers his wound—now cleaned up and patched with bacta. But where he expects regret, he doesn't find it. 

She snorts beside him, moving about a small rectangular device he now notices she's perched on top of his stomach. 

"The post-coital bliss is affecting your thinking."

It's not. He knows it's not. "I don't regret having sex with you." 

She huffs, half irritated, half interested. He knows because her gaze lingers on her fingers, still pressing against the side of his face where she'd cut him. He chuckles at the memory. 

"You some sort of vampire?" Ben teases, slipping his fingers under her tunic—the one he remembers tearing in the heat of passion—to knead at her exposed buttocks. His arms are sore, it burns just to move in increments but he ignores it. Rey hums lightly, flicking a switch on the square device on his stomach as blue light floods his line of sight. He squeezes her ass once before he notices they'd moved to some sort of bed on the floor. The blue light is coming from the compact holoprojector Rey has and it's playing some sort of nature program in lambent blue light. 

After a while, she talks again, eyes still on the display. "You read too many holobooks."

"I liked it." He hums, taking a massive risk by turning to her. She winces when he groans painfully, a slight flush creeping up her face. He sees it, thanks to the blue light, but does not comment on it. 

"You're just saying that."

He looks at her with feigned seriousness, though his head is swimming in dopamine at how close they are to each other. "I came so hard, sweetheart."

"Not—"

"—your problem, I know," he chuckles, brushing a lock of her hair behind her ear and dropping a kiss on her forehead. 

Rey doesn't say anything after that, instead, she tightens the arms she has around his waist and sets the holoprojector aside so that the room is once again consumed only by red and black. He hears her take in a shaky breath before nuzzling her head on his chest. 

He slips his hands away from her rear to wrap them around her slim waist, burying his prominent nose in her greasy hair. That smells like smoke, too, sweat and sulfur, like she always does. He huddles closer. 

A full minute passes before he shuffles, noticing the holoprojector sitting on top of a dusty heap of folded _ flimsiplast_. 

"Rey?" He mumbles in her hair, reaching for the device. 

"Mmh?"

"What were you watching?" 

Ben brings the holoprojector close so she can hold it. He lets her twist in his arms so she can set the device down and he can spoon her as they both watch it. 

The terrain re-appears, somehow vividly green despite it being in unfeeling blue. 

_ "We are the Rebel Alliance—" _

Ben's eyes go wide. "The Rebel Alliance?"

She nods, eyes focused on the projection. 

_ "For so long, the Empire has lain waste to the Galaxy. Riding on the wings of an oppressive, destabilizing regime hiding behind the excuse that an iron fist is crucial for peace to reign true once more—" _

The officer's face blurs a little where the tape is cut, but the words float out as clear as ever._ "The Rebel Alliance will _ not _ stand for this artifice. The Galactic Government derives its power and right to rule from the consent of the governed, not from the whims of the few." _

The audio breaks a little, a dragging static ensues and for a while, Ben wonders if it's over. It blinks back again and now Ben is looking in the eyes of his mother and Rey is whispering her very words to the stale air. 

_ "We, the Rebel Alliance, do therefore in the name—and by the authority—of the free beings of the Galaxy, solemnly publish and declare our intentions: To refuse any Imperial law contrary to the rights of free beings, bring about the destruction of the oppressive Galactic Empire, and—" _

"Make forever free all beings in the galaxy—"

_ "Join the Rebel Alliance now, and stand with us for a better, lasting peace for the galaxy, and all its inhabitants!" _

The image clicks off—the youthful eyes of his mother staring right at him like she knows something he doesn’t.

"It's a Rebel Alliance propaganda holo. I found it at a downed _ X-Wing _ fighter back when I was thrown to Jakku after killing that Gungan prince. Been watchin' it ever since."

He finds he'd been drawing patterns on her waist throughout the holo, watching as she shivers slightly every time he flattens his palms and massages her jutting hipbones. His voice is quiet against her shoulder. "You wanted to be like them."

It's slow, he almost doesn't notice it, but she nods. "Yes." 

“Why?”

He’d thought she’d take a while to answer but her tone is sure, like she’s practiced this speech for so long while looking at the daily carnage in her life, hating the snobbish politicians pretending they cared, remembering her family and regretting things in her life she has no control over— “They have something I’ve been searching for all my life.” She pauses and then heaves a sigh, like she’s mentally preparing for something ominous, like a slow, rambling storm in the distance.

“What’s that?”

“Purpose.”

He smiles affectionately, kissing her temple. She doesn’t say anything about that and he takes that as cue to change the subject.

Ben delivers. "You know, that's my mother."

"I know." She smiles, weak but with a slip of genuine happiness. 

"What gave it away?"

"The eyes, mostly," she grins back. "And that nose—" she taps his nose once, with the tip of her pointer finger. Ben bites it playfully in his mouth, drawing it in and suckling on it gently. Her breath hitches but she doesn't stop him. 

He lets it go with a wet pop. "Rey—"

"I'm leaving, Ben."

He stills, before he's holding her tighter. "Can't you stay for a little longer?" 

"I'm going to die if I stay too long here. I have to go off-world as soon as I can."

His throat burns at the thought of not seeing her again, his heart clenches painfully, is drenched in an oily boiling bath of needles shredding his veins to pieces. "I won't let that happen." It's futile. He knows that. She knows that. But she laughs, that rare and powerful laugh that's actually a little happy for once. 

"You gonna make a law to protect my life or something?"

"For you, sweetheart, anything." 

Her shoulders shake with a broken sigh. She sits up and takes his face in her hands, kissing him so tender and soft. Her heart pours adoration for him, her brain fizzling with sorrow at what could have been. When she lets go, he mutters, "Which planet?"

"Somewhere you’ll never find me."

"I will." 

She laughs wetly, kissing him through the salt of her tears. "You better."

*

The Senate nearly tears up when he shows up at the Senate Building, though unhurt, dusty and messy like he'd been tumbling about in soot and grime. 

Qaff-ta freaks out about his patched cheek wound but Ben assures him it's not fatal, even as a strip of bacta patch is visibly running the side of his neck. 

"How did you manage to come back?" Senator Valla asks with genuine worry on his face. 

"I sought refuge at a cantina somewhere in the _ Uscru _ district where a lady helped me recover." 

"A lady?"

Ben nods. "A very wonderful one." 

*

Senator Organa remembers D'Qar in very much the same way he's left it. The hangar still smells like scrap metal and engine oil, the base is filled with tactical conversations, holos displaying battle stations, cross-sections of starships, artillery shipments, fragmented parts of the known galaxy—and the mess is the grand chaotic place he remembers playing in. 

A pilot—he knew him by name and by history—recognizes him from afar. Ben finds the orange suit ugly because it is, but on Poe Dameron, it isn't.

"Hey, man!" He greets, raising one hand up for a high five. 

"Dameron! Nice to see you're still rocking that orange juice aesthetic!"

"Hey, you don't get to tell me that. This flightsuit means I make the cut in this fine organization and _ you _ don't."

Ben grins. It's good to be back. "I'd like to see your face when I toast you out there for an X-Wing race. I'll bet you still think that one outdated maneuver is the best." 

"One time, Ben, _ one time! _” Poe groans, shoving him playfully. “I was sixteen and allowed in a cockpit for the first time. Theory is different from practice!" 

"50 credits says you'll probably chicken out the minute I tell my mother about this."

"Tell me what?" 

Poe stiffens, unused to the General's attention unless it's about mounting orbital dogfights with the opposite side. Ben smiles broadly despite the scowl on her mother's face. 

"The next time you land a craft that big, you tell me first." She throws at him, displeased about something. Poe excuses himself; Ben follows her deeper into the base. 

"What's going on?"

"Small attacks, mainly within the Outer Rims. We try to help as soon as we can, intercept as best we can."

Ben nods; he knows this. They are in close contact with the Senate, doing reconnaissance runs within the planets the First Order are still trying to terrorize. 

"We're sending a ground assault team as we speak, to follow our spies."

"General," she turns to a middle-aged woman in a uniform, walking over to study the screen. "All supplies and ships are ready for deployment."

Leia nods. "Tell the team to go to the hangar before the actual briefing."

"Yes, General."

"The hangar?" Ben asks. His mother smiles and he remembers Rey's holo from a time he still feels is yesterday but has actually been a whole year ago. His heart aches, he tries to bear down the burning in his throat. 

Leia grins, tapping his chest. "They'll need a few words of encouragement from the Republic."

*

Ben’s visit to the base was a sort of escape from the clutches of politics, this he knew his mother understands. So when he's given the task to boost morale for several pilots and combatants for a battle for the Republic—though it _ is _ for the Republic—he feels like he does not want to. 

But his mother does not take kindly to people who say no to her, especially when she knows the task is crucial and necessary. 

He takes up the center of a crescent-shaped band of different beings in flightsuits and uniforms fitted with blaster holsters, breathing apparatuses and helmets for the pilots. 

He begins the familiar syllables, recites it for the most part, a spiel he's learned to dish out even with his eyes closed when—

_ Rey_, his brain supplies, gaping in reverent awe as she stands there, as shocked as he is, in a terrible orange flightsuit. 

Terrible. 

He's walking to her. She is, too. 

"Ben?" The General—his mother—she's waiting for the speech—

"I thought you'd be somewhere I’ll never find you?" He's whispering but he knows she hears it, her laughter, her giggle, it rings in his head. The bond is alive, newborn, fizzling with energy— 

Rey shrugs, the jacket shifting a little and beneath it, he knows her shoulder is bony and freckled and beautiful. "Thought I'd take an interest in my lover's cause." 

Beside him, Leia's probably gaping, and so is the rest of the team. He doesn't give a fuck. 

"You love me?" 

"You did it first, rookie."

"Who's the rookie now?" His eyes dart to the flightsuit. 

"Benjamin." Leia breaks the spell and suddenly, they're looking at their feet in shame like teenagers. "Anything you want to tell me?" 

"This is Rey, mom." He begins, reaching over and grasping her hands, grinning like an idiot. "And we'll be starting on your grandchildren the moment she comes back."

"Benjamin!" Leia scolds while the entire team laughs. 

Ben's seen his mother smile before, back when he was terribly young but now she smiles again, a slow and powerful sight, warm hands reaching out for Rey. 

"I'll pay you extra if you can shut him up." 

Rey laughs uproariously. "Quite the challenge, isn't it?"

Leia rolls her eyes. "You have no idea." 

"I'm right here." Ben sighs exasperatedly. 

"You all are dismissed." The General nods, leaving the two wordlessly as do the rest of the team. 

"Yes, you are," Rey squeals, jumping in his arms when he opens them. She thumbs the scar she's given him, a pale white line on his cheek, on his neck. 

"Stay." He says the word now, against her neck, against her skin. "Stay with me."

Rey laughs like she's mocking him but knows that's all the answer he needs. 

**Author's Note:**

> Rey's Huttese conversation:  
"Now. I'm looking for Grutta."  
"It's too late. You're in trouble now."  
"When can I expect payment?"  
(Rey is shouted an expletive)  
"That's the idea."  
"It's not good business, sweetie pie. You'll end up womp rat food."  
"I will keep my weapon/blaster."  
"Tagwa." is basically, 'yes,' but in this case, I used it like, 'alright.'


End file.
